Column: Mac and cheese dinner sends one man to hospital

A friendly get together turned violent in Bucklesberry on Saturday night.

According to authorities, Jasper Fontaine, 46, of Franklin Cover Road, La Grange, was "coerced" into piercing his own ear with a spork.

"Mr. Fontaine was entertaining guests at his residence on Saturday evening," said Det. Isabel Sanford of the Lenoir County Police Department. "A prank involving a plate of shells and cheese is believed to have been the catalyst for the ensuing injuries."

According to an incident report, one of the dinner guests started taking advantage of a reportedly intoxicated Fontaine around 8:40 p.m.

"Paul Benedict, 48, of Grifton, reportedly told Fontaine that if he held a shell from his shells and cheese dinner up to his ear, he'd be able to hear the ocean," Sanford said. "Fontaine picked up one shell and held it to his right ear, but when he complained that he couldn't hear anything, Benedict said the shells were tiny so he'd need to cram a few inside his ear in order to hear the ocean properly. After about 10 minutes of this, Fontaine had reportedly stuffed 11 ounces of cheese-covered shells into his ear."

Mistaking the silence caused by the shells as the dull roar of the ocean, Fontaine then decided to cram his other ear full of shells so he could hear the ocean in stereo. After consuming two more cans of beer in as many minutes, Fontaine reportedly passed out on the floor of his kitchen. After a few hours had passed, Fontaine woke up asking for food.

"For some reason drinking makes Jasper hungry," Benedict said. "He woke up asking where the shells and cheese were. We told him he'd stuffed them in his ears, and without so much as a blink he picked up a fork and went in after them."

Due to Fontaine's level of inebriation, his inner-ear maneuvers were not surgical in nature.

"He thought he was being careful with that fork, but he was all over the place," Benedict said. "It looked like he used the bottom of a golf shoe for a pillow by the time he was finished. Lucky for him the cheese sauce acted as a coagulant."

Authorities would not comment on whether or not Fontaine was successful in his bid to retrieve the lodged shells and cheese.

This not the first time Fontaine has been led astray by his friends while under the influence of alcohol.

"We went to Florida years ago and as usual drank a few too many," Benedict said. "Fontaine was so loaded he mistook Sea World for a Red Lobster and took off after Shamu with a plastic fork he found in the rental car."

Jon Dawson's columns appear in the Free Press every Tuesday and Thursday. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Purchase Jon's new book "Counterfeit Sauerkraut & The Weekend Teeth" at the Free Press office or jondawson.com.

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